


Raw Footage

by Mook5



Category: Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: Gen, This MIGHT be Jensard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-24 13:22:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 12,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8373757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mook5/pseuds/Mook5
Summary: “Don't get into too much trouble, Francis.”
Pritchard likes to push his luck with everything, he just never realizes how far he pushes his luck until he finds himself staring into a camera of a snuff film.





	1. 1: Friday (Calm Before the Storm)

“Everything computerwise looks good for the weekend?” Jensen liked to make small talk with Pritchard whenever they had to share the elevator. 

“You know saying 'Nice weather we are having' is just as bad a line, of course everything is good.” Pritchard rolled his eyes. 

Jensen shook his head. “I have a hard time imagining what a man like you does on weekends, you know.”

“Probably the same thing you do, Jensen.” Pritchard said, then crossed his arms. “Absolutely nothing.”

Jensen couldn't help but chuckle. “I take that back, that's exactly what I imagined you would be doing.” Ding ground floor. “Don't get into too much trouble, Francis.”

On the way home Pritchard pondered if what Jensen said was just a way of saying bye, or if he could actually read minds, because Pritchard was planning on doing some not so safe stuff this weekend. Nah, that's just his paranoid thoughts speaking up. There's no way Jensen would've known. And now for a Jensen-free weekend.

One of Pritchard's hobbies was to meet up with random hackers, some who work for the government, in public places. He doesn't do this a lot since there are not a lot of truly awe-inspiring hackers out there, but there were a couple that actually showed up and shared information that would be too secret for something wikileaks. He gets a thrill out of these moments, them sharing stories of pulling illegal stuff. And then of course afterward Pritchard would lock himself in his house for 24 hours in case someone else decided he didn't need to know certain information that he was told. So far so good though.   
This weekend, he managed to nab an opportunity to chat with someone who could bring down entire companies with a press of a button. This one he felt like he had to go, he would stay silent, or maybe talk about his old days, and then use this hacker's stories as a good way to make sure Sarif's cyber defenses were good enough to stand up to an attack from someone like this guy. It was a win-win situation.

And that Saturday night he showed up at some creepy old bar and sat near some weird dude, but everything went surprisingly well. He actually did learn some things. It was after his hacker friend left that things turned really, really sour.


	2. One a.m. (Watched)

Pritchard went outside and found both his motorcycle's tires slashed. Normally this would piss him off but considering he just talked with an illegal hacker he nearly stopped breathing. First off, back inside creepy bar was top priority. A public place with people would be safer than outside in the middle of the goddamn night. He sat right back in the back corner where his earlier conversation took place.

Think, Pritchard, think. What would…of course what would Jensen do, why was THAT the first thought in his head? Well, honestly Jensen would probably hide in a vent. No, let's be real, Jensen would probably stand up to whoever was doing this. Pritchard would be the one to run into a vent into a situation like this. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any vents in this place.

Several people were eyeing Pritchard, sending shivers up his spine. Maybe there was a back door? Nice Frank, a back door in a place like this? That's just asking for it. He shifted uncomfortably. Well...there was Jensen...but what the hell would he tell him? Hello Jensen! I did bad things and now I'm in a bad place! Come save me! Well, his tires were technically flat, that wasn't a lie. He'll do that. He connected the small infolink piece into his ear and pinged Jensen, fidgeting so much it pretty much could be interpreted as a dance. “Jensen?”

“Ugh...hello? Pritchard?” Jensen yawned. “It's one in the morning...”

“Yes, that's nice, I need you pick me up.” Pritchard whispered, eyes darting around the bar.

“...Pick you...from where? What are you doing out so late?” Jensen stretched.

“Um, flat tires, no more questions Jensen, just pick me up already.” Pritchard tried to hiss in annoyance, but it came out more like a squeak.

“Is everything alright?...You still didn't tell me where you are.” Jensen said, definitely awake now.

“I'm at this bar called Drift In, okay? Just fucking pick me up.”

“Didn't like 12 people die at that exact bar?” 

“Jensen just pick me up!” Pritchard was panicking by now and he wanted out, maybe because his imagination liked to torture him, or maybe because the same 3 people were still staring at him.

“Alright, what are you even doing there in the first place?”

“No more questions Jensen, are you going to pick me up or what?” Pritchard kept an eye out as one of the men staring had got up and started walking towards him. “Okay fine, I think I'm in trouble.” 

“Was that before or after you realized what bar you were at? What's going on?” Jensen asked sternly.

“I'll explain when you-” Pritchard felt a prick in the back of his neck and sat up straight. He couldn't move. Oh God what has he gotten himself into this time? Luckily, his infolink was still recording everything to Jensen.

“Pritchard? You there?” Jensen's voice spoke in his ear. 

One of the men that was watching him earlier was standing right next to him, giving him a creepy grin. “I couldn't help but over hear you needed a ride, we'll give you one.”

“Okay...sure...I'll go with you.” Pritchard had no idea how but the words just came out of his mouth.

“Pritchard? Who are you talking with? Don't go anywhere, stay where you are.” Jensen sounded a bit alarmed.

“Good, good, first you need to turn off that little phone of yours.” The man said, nodding towards Pritchard's infolink.

“Francis! Don't! Listen to me, Francis, do NOT cut off-” 

Pritchard's hand moved by itself and removed the device.

“Good, now leave it on the table and let's get going.” The man grinned, watching Pritchard obey his words, then lead him out the front door.


	3. The Night's Just Begun

Pritchard guessed he'd been stuck with a small exterior implant that could somehow control him, because how else would he end up in the back of a fucking van with strangers? The only piece of hope he had was Jensen was aware of how bad of situation he was in. But could Jensen find him? If these people had a device that could control people, it probably could override location signals.

There was literally nothing he could do but observe and think. 

“Fits the description, hmm?” One older man said with a raspy voice, looking back at Pritchard.

“That he does, skinny, white, long hair. A real winner.” The driver laughed 

The third man turned around, grinning wildly at Pritchard. “Ever wanted to be a movie star? What should we call this one?”

“Rodent.”

“I like that. Rodent, you ready for your first scene?” the third man grabbed handcuffs and ropes immobilized Pritchard, then removed the small controlling device.

Pritchard gasped and struggled against the restraints. “What the fuck do you guys WANT from me?!”

The third man took out a huge knife “Don't try anything stupid, Rodent.”

“Shouldn't we wait until we get to the house?” The raspy voiced man asked.

“Nah, a car scene would be fun.” The third man tossed the knife aside and took out a rather fancy camera. 

Pritchard froze up when the red light stared at him like some kind of evil eye. 

 

Jensen nearly swerved his car into the bar's tiny parking lot. Pritchard's bike was out in front. God dammit he better be inside. Though he knew well enough, that was too good to be true.   
Once inside, Jensen spotted Pritchard's infolink instantly and groaned to himself. He picked it up and walked over to the bartender. “You see a thin man with a ponytail in here earlier?”

“Yeah, left not too long ago though.” The bartender didn't seem to be aware of what was going on. No wonder people got away with so much shit in this place.

“Did he leave with another person?” 

“Yeah a group of two or three guys.”

“Do you know where they went?” Jensen gritted his teeth, not liking where this is going.  
“No. They just left together.” The bartender shrugged.

Thanks for nothing, Jensen turned around and walked outside. Luckily, Pritchard had small neural augments that included a locator. Of course that would be too good to be true, as it appeared to be turned off. He got back in his car and sighed, staring at Pritchard's infolink. Had he been a target of something? Plus why would he willingly follow instructions like that? That was very unlike him, he always put up a fight to the most basic of tasks. Plus the bartender didn't seem to find anything out of the ordinary, he was sure the guy would remember if there was a gun being held up to Pritchard. None of this made any sense. Jensen tossed the infolink in the passenger seat and rubbed his face. He tried to ping Pritchard's location again out of frustration as he was out of options. And miraculously, it pinged back.


	4. The Recording Session

“Put the bag on his head.” Was the last thing Pritchard heard before his world went dark and he was hauled out of the van. When the bag was taken off he found himself in what looked like some dirty basement with a camera and very bright floodlamps facing him. His kidnappers wore animal masks and started to rip and tear his clothes off with knives, not being very careful and sliced him up a couple of times in the process.

“Stay still.”

“Aren't you perfect for the camera.” 

Pritchard shivered from a mixture of being cold and pure fear. “Am I...getting out of here alive?” He whispered, his eyes memorizing his surroundings.

One of the masked men, in a tiger mask chuckled as he smacked the side of Pritchard's head with the back of the knife. “That's a good one, Rodent.”

When they ripped off his underwear he knew he wasn't getting out of this place ever again.   
'Don't get into too much trouble, Francis' Jensen's words echoed in his head. Fuck, he never wanted to see Jensen as much as he did right now. 

“Look up.” 

Pritchard hesitated and was met with a swinging crowbar under his eye. The room swam around him as he smashed into the floor in burning pain. A kick to the face, more smacks with that crowbar and laughter in his face was his last chapter in this shit life of his apparently. 

The raspy voiced man, with a wolf mask now took out a revolver and pointed it at Pritchard's head. “Let's see if its your lucky day” He laughed while spinning the cylinder.  
Click  
Pritchard jumped when the trigger was pulled.  
“How about another try?”  
The wolf masked man lifted the barrel just over his ear and pulled the trigger.  
BOOM  
The gun exploded and shot into the wall. The ear shattering noise caused Pritchard to scream out.

“Aww you gonna cry like a little bitch now?” The tiger masked man laughed joining back in.

Pritchard couldn't help it and broke down. He was hurt, humiliated, frightened, and wasn't sure when they were actually going to kill him. A hand grabbed his hair and pulled him back on his knees. 

“Look at the camera.” 

Pritchard weeped, cowering from the lights, masks, and eyes that bombarded him like knives. 

The wolf masked man rushed over, cocking the gun and pointed it between Pritchard's eyes. Not only he whimpered but accidentally soiled himself in terror. Of course this resulted in cackles and more laughter. The wolf masked man grabbed Pritchard's hair and shoved his face into his own puddle of urine. “Look at what you did, you disgusting pig. Lick it up.”

He couldn't be serious, Pritchard cried and whimpered in protest, squeezing his eyes shut fighting the urge to vomit. 

“Lick. It. Up.” The wolf masked man rammed his head further into the concrete. “Lap it up like a dog.”

Pritchard finally obeyed until he finally did vomit, and again the man kept his face against the floor so he was not only vomiting but coughing it back up trying to breathe. 

Another kick to this head and the room was spinning and fading out. There was screaming. And then nothing. Pritchard closed his eyes, they finally left him alone for one god damn moment. Maybe he could hurry up and die before they come up with something else to do to him.

 

And then a very soft voice and a gentle touch to his shoulder. “Francis?...”


	5. Here comes Jensen!

Jensen kept pinging Pritchard's location until he found himself outside the city and at a house in the middle of god knows where. It wasn't to hard to get inside as these idiots left the front door unlocked. He flipped on his invisibility and crept through the house

“Lick. It. Up.”

Jensen's head perked up. Sounds like it's coming from the basement. He silently walked down the stairs and froze at the scene in front of him. Pritchard was naked, tied up, blood soaked, and being filmed. He was coughing, vomiting and sobbing at the same time which ignited a fire within Jensen. His rage exploded so wildly that even his visual augments didn't know what the hell was going on. He didn't even bother with his invisibility anymore, these mother fuckers weren’t getting out of this alive. 

He bolted down the stairs and jumped on the camera man and brought his metal fist down on his Owl mask. Not only the mask snapped in half but the force cracked open the man's face as well.

The other two men jumped away from Pritchard and tore their masks off while watching the scene in horror. “What the FUCK?!”

Before the man who had the wolf mask could even bring up his gun Jensen was on him like a rabid dog. He was usually quiet when he had to commit violence but this time was different, he was baring teeth seething and screaming out in rage. He grabbed his arms and twisted them with such a force that they snapped in half. The man screamed out, but was met with a kick to the chest so hard his ribs snapped. While that man was down, Jensen turned on the other one and kicked his legs hard enough to snap them backwards. The man cried out and Jensen comforted him with a fist to the face, then an arm sword through the neck.   
Oh but he wasn't done with broken arms man yet. He spun on his heel and charged over at the screaming mess. In one fluid motion he brought his foot down on the man's temple and cracked it open like a watermelon. 

“Fuck...” Jensen panted, the adrenaline flowed through him as he looked at the bodies. How dare they pull shit like this. He took a deep breath to calm himself before even attempting to think about Pritchard again, then finally crouched and placed a hand on the poor shivering man. “...Francis?”

 

Pritchard nearly jumped when he was touched. On one hand, he was thanking the cyber gods that Jensen actually showed up. On the other hand, he'd never felt so vulnerable in his life. Jensen had always intimidated him which made Pritchard strike up an attitude to compensate for that feeling of helplessness.  
And here he was truly helpless in front of Jensen. He would like to say he felt safe now but that was a damn lie. He'd never feel safe in his life again.

“Francis...” Jensen felt sick for multiple reasons. First off, there was a LOT of bodily fluids all over the floor [and even on Pritchard]. Next he felt disgusted with himself for not showing up sooner. He had dealt with feelings a bit like this back when he used to be part of SWAT. He knew a part of the tech was dead already and he'd never be the same. Everyone he knew was some sort of greedy backstabber and Pritchard was one of the only ones who was loyal to him. Granted, they bickered and at points, straight up hated each other, but he they had each other's backs.

And Jensen failed to protect Pritchard's back.

That is what made him truly feel sick. “Francis, please say something.” He swallowed back that painful ball of sadness as he carefully cut Pritchard's ropes and tore the handcuffs apart with.

“I'm sorry...” Pritchard barely whispered.

“Don't be. Let me have a look at you.” Jensen flipped on his casie mod to access the damage. Luckily his spine looked fine. There was a massive bloody gash on his face with cracks on his cheekbone. On top of that, it appeared that he had a ruptured eardrum. Jensen fought back curses. “We should get you to a hospital.”

“No, they will keep records...” Pritchard weakly protested as he sat up. “I'm fine.”

Jensen sighed. Even when bruised and battered, the tech never stopped having those paranoid thoughts of his. He took off his trench coat and wrapped it around Pritchard. He also made a mental note to wash it about 40 times later. “Let's get out of here.”


	6. Back to Jensen’s Place

The ride back to the city was mostly in silence. Jensen couldn’t seem to get rid of that guilty feeling that was crawling through him. Pritchard stayed huddled in Jensen’s large trench coat and stared out the window. It was eerie how quiet he was. Usually Pritchard just talked to hear himself talk. The usually fidgety man didn’t really move either. Jensen clenched the steering wheel. A part of the poor guy really did die back there..  
The car pulled into Jensen’s apartment garage. Pritchard blinked a bit. “This isn’t my place.”  
“I know, it’s mine.” Jensen replied.  
“You know I don’t have any clothes right?” Pritchard’s sarcasm started to come back, which Jensen took as a good sign. He wasn’t able to actually look Jensen in the eye though.  
“I got extra clothes. I just particularly like this outfit.” Jensen deadpanned and opened the door. “You’ll stay with me for the night, come on.”  
“I’m not a baby Jensen, I DO know how to take care of myself.” Pritchard said, but was following close behind him, hiding in the dirty coat. “In fact, I bet I have more food than you. Besides, my place has WAY better security” they were now in the elevator. “and you have your name written in the documents here.” Now walking down the hallway. “And what about my computers, hmm? You know someone has to keep watch-“  
“Pritchard “ Jensen interrupted him while opening his door. “You’ll be fine.”  
The tech blushed a bit, realizing he’d been rambling this entire time out of nervousness. “I never said I wasn’t!” He stuck up his nose and walked in.  
Jensen gave him extra pajamas and finished setting up the couch-now-bed when Pritchard came out nice and clean. With all that blood washed off, it was easy to see that crack in his face from that crowbar. “Here…”Jensen grabbed him ointments and bandages. “You really should have that looked at.”  
“Hmph, I’m fine. Besides it’s only slightly less painful than my ear, I’ll get over that too, of course. Besides, I ca-“  
“Your ear hurts?” Jensen cut him off, starting to really understand that a very uncomfortable Pritchard will NOT be shutting up anytime soon.  
“I mean, I can’t really hear out of it, and it’s sore but nothing painkillers won’t handle. You DO have painkillers right? I mean you normally take more bullets than a gun target. I don’t ever see YOU doing anything about it.”  
“Mhmm.” Jensen handed him a bottle of painkillers. “Don’t take too much.” It was too late to debate about that ruptured eardrum.  
“You know I can read the bottle right? And these are over the counter- AND close to expiring Jensen!” Pritchard kept following Jensen around and rambling on. “They only thing here that isn’t expired is milk and cereal. And what about your security? God knows how long it’s been since THAT’S been updated.”  
Jensen gave a slight curved smile to himself as Pritchard was STILL following him around his apartment. “Alright Francis. I’m going back to bed, it’s late, you know. Help yourself and get some sleep. Night.”   
“Don’t close-“ Pritchard now found himself standing in front of Jensen’s closed door. That vulnerable feeling started to come back. Like hell if he was going ask Jensen to come back out here. He had better things to do. Like update Jensen’s security system. He’ll do that. He could throw in some upgrades as well. And maybe he could organise this awful place. He could even a range the books in alphabetical order. 

“Pritchard?”   
Pritchard nearly jumped out of his skin. “SHIT!”  
“Sorry, it’s like, 7 am, why are you up?” Jensen yawned.  
“Wait what?” Pritchard looked around. He didn’t even realize he just worked the night away. “Obviously, I couldn’t sleep in such conditions. You know you could clean once in a while.”  
“Come on.” Jensen didn’t even need to push the tech over to the couch, since Pritchard was back to following him like a puppy. “Go to sleep.”  
Pritchard was feeling relaxed just enough for the tiredness to catch back up. “Fine. But if I wake up because this couch is uncomfortable, then we will have some serious problems.”  
“noted.” Jensen said and pulled over a chair.  
“What are you going to watch me me sleep now?” Pritchard whined, now in the bed and turned his back to him.  
Obviously I have to, Jensen thought to himself. Luckily, the exhausted hacker was soon out like a light. Jensen yawned again and got up to go catch a couple more hours of sleep.


	7. Saturday

The next morning Jensen got dressed and walked out to find the tech still sleeping. He looked quite uncomfortable on the couch so Jensen decided to offer up his own bed. “Hey...you awake?” he asked softly.  
Pritchard stirred.  
“Francis?”  
Pritchard gasped awake and nearly threw himself off the couch to get away, but Jensen grabbed him back up. “Woah! Woah, I'm sorry! I didn't mean-”  
“I'm awake!!” Pritchard pushed Jensen off of him, growing red with embarrassment.  
“Well, I just wanted to tell you that you can use my bed if you want.”  
“Hmph. Too late for that now.” The tech took a deep breath and shook off the rest of that little rush he had. “Besides, you need to take me to my place so I can actually wear REAL clothes. And do REAL work.” he eyed Jensen making cereal now. “And also eat REAL food! I had some cereal last night, I don't know how you could possibly live off that stuff. It's just sugar.”  
“Mhmm” Jensen crunched and nodded.  
Pritchard rolled his eyes. “I'm going to go to the bathroom and you better be ready to leave.”

Jensen couldn't help but smile a little, the guy will be fine. Though being completely fine after one night seemed a little...off. Even for a guy like Pritchard. Hopefully he'll be totally back to normal, or at least near that by Monday. He couldn't help but wonder why he was worrying this much about the guy. It was in his nature to look after people, people who couldn't fight back...like Pritchard. He silently chuckled to himself. As much as he liked to have him talk his friggen ears off a small break right about now sounded nice. He finished and started to clean up his dishes.

“Did you forget about being ready to leave already?” Pritchard piped up from behind him.  
“Yeah almost done.” Jensen hurried up.

BANG

Pritchard froze, he was back in that room with the camera staring at him. The gun right over his ear. The masks laughing at him. Even the crowbar that was about to smash into his face-

“Pritchard snap out of it!!”

Pritchard found himself back in Jensen's kitchen area, hyperventilating and shaking uncontrollably. His knees buckled but Jensen caught onto him and carefully sat him on the floor. “I..” His voice quivered as tears fell. 

“Jesus, Pritchard, I'm sorry about that.” Jensen looked quite alarmed. “A pan dropped from the counter, are you alright?”  
Pritchard couldn't look at him, but quickly nodded.  
Fuck. Jensen frowned. So this was going to be a lot harder than he thought.  
“I'm fine, I'm fine...” The tech shook his head and stood back up, quickly regaining his composure.  
“Take it easy, Francis.” Jensen flipped on his CASIE-mod. Then again, he didn't need that thing to know what a panic attack looked like.  
“Let's go already.” Prichard turned away from him. How fucking embarrasing, letting himself show something like that.  
“Alright then...” Jensen eye him carefully. 

 

They rode in silence, letting Jensen think to himself again. The way Pritchard was handling this was not good. But he couldn't really pinpoint WHY it wasn't good. He was able to regain himself really fast. That was good. He seemed fine more or less most of the time.  
He then thought about how concerned he was, he didn't even think about himself. Well, he usually didn't think about himself that much with Pritchard around. Especially when everything was about Pritchard most of the time. He thought back about the men and what they did to him.  
A deep rage was growling within him. It was an unfamiliar type of hatred or anger. It was quite soft at first. At first he thought it was dull anger that appeared in the moment, but the more he thought about it the more it grew.  
No, it's been there this entire time since he found Pritchard. It was what made him kill those men without even blinking. A type of rage that has no business being within a person. He chased off the thoughts and luckily the rage subsided.

They were in Pritchard's place now and Jensen took a little stroll through his apartment as the tech got dressed into some 'actual clothes'. Yep it was just as he expected. Dirty as hell. Computers, computers, technology, and more computers.  
“Alright Jensen, thanks for everything, I mean it. You can go now.” Pritchard walked out of his room with a pair of new pants and a fresh turtleneck.

Jensen stared at him.  
“What?” Pritchard held his hands out.  
“You just want me to leave? Like nothing happened?”  
“Yeah, what else is there to do?” he put his hands on his hips.

Jensen had to hold back a laugh. Was he being serious right now? “Pritchard...don't you...do you need to talk about anything? What happened yesterday...”  
“And we will never talk about it again, okay? I'm fine, I told you. Now leave, Jensen, I got a lot to do.” he said and started to push the large man for the door. 

Jensen sighed. “Alright, oh, your infolink.” He grabbed it from his pocket. “Pritchard, I mean this when I say it, you call me if you need anything.”  
“Uhuh, THANKS Jensen. Buh-bye!” Pritchard shut the door on him with haste and locked it very quickly.  
The panic attack that was about to erupt from him was nearing it's critical point. He sprinted into his bedroom and started to bawl uncontrollably. He instinctively started kicking, throwing, breaking things and even screaming out until his vocal chords felt like they were about to rip.

About 30 minutes he fell on his bed out of breath. His room was completely destroyed and it looked like a twister went through it rather than him. 

“Pritchard.” whispered a voice in his ear. The infolink, that's right he was wearing that again, wasn't he?  
“What, Jensen?!” He didn't have time for this.  
“Can you open the door?”  
Pritchard froze. “What?...”  
“Just open the door please.”  
“How long were you out-”  
“It doesn't matter, just let me in, Francis.”

God. Dammit. He heard fucking everything, didn't he? The dread of unlocking that door only refueled his panic. What if he didn't open it? Jensen would probably just rip the door off, that would be no good. Fine.  
He unlocked it and Jensen let himself in without saying a word. The larger man just gave him a tight hug. Pritchard tried to push him off at first but he knew that wasn't get him anywhere. He gave up and cried as feelings of embarrassment, fear, sadness, panic, abandonment, happiness, safeness, and friendship rushed back to him all at once. He let everything out and Jensen never said a word to him.  
But he didn't need to be told anything at that moment. It was clear what he was saying. He was there for him and there was no need to hide or stuff anything down.  
Finally, Pritchard stepped back and took a deep breath. “I'm sorry...”  
“Don't. There's no need to be sorry.” Jensen looked at him.  
“I...thanks Adam. I mean it this time. For everything.” For once, Prichard gave him a sincere smile.

“No problem.” Jensen smiled back.  
Pritchard smiled even bigger. “Nice, ruin the moment why don't you, Jensen?”  
“What I do now?” Jensen held his hands up.  
“I don't know, I just wanted accuse you of something.” Pritchard rolled his eyes “You're being too nice, it's not you.”  
“No? So what do you want me to do?” Jensen replied. “Break your legs for good measure?”  
Pritchard laughed out. “Go ahead! You'll be downgraded from Sarif head of security to full metal maid in no time, Jensen.”  
Jensen shook his head and smiled an actual smile as well. He'd honestly never seen this side of Pritchard before. Was that really what he was like? Under those thick sarcastic asshole defenses of his?  
Jensen spent the rest of the day helping Pritchard clean up his apartment. Normally he'd dread something like this, but he and Pritchard actually had some fun conversations, jokes, and even the banter that they've always secretly had too much fun with.


	8. Saturday 11:50 pm

A man carefully walked over three very dead bodies. His shirt was pulled over his nose to try and stop some of the awful hellish odor in the room. He started to take pictures of the room with his phone. He grunted past the horrible smell again and dialed. “Boss. We got a problem….Yeah the camera is still here…Alright, I'll have it for you by noon.”

 

This time Jensen found himself back in that basement. Something was different, everything was going slow. Pritchard was back in those ropes and cuffs, getting his face pushed to the pile filth. Slowly Jensen realized he was in the dream. Why was he here? Was his mind trying to torment him? “Hey, wake up!” He called out. Nothing. No reaction from the slow scene either.  
Hold on.  
There was one thing different. One item that stuck out, because it was moving along at the same speed that he was. The video camera.  
Oh FUCK.  
The camera.

Jensen shot awake, his face and body covered in sweat. Shit. He forgot all about the camera. He was back at his apartment and Pritchard was feeling well enough to stay at his. Shit, he couldn't tell Pritchard about this. At least not now. He thought he remembered knocking it over so it may not have a good shot of him, but it definitely had plenty of footage of Pritchard. He got up and rushed to grab the thin tablet that displays the news. Having the police find it would not be good, but it wouldn't be the worst case scenario. Nope nothing about it in the news. There were two scenarios left. One, nobody found it, that was the best case scenario. Two, those freak's friends found it. That would be the worst case scenario. He quickly dressed and ran out to his car, flooring it for that shitty little torture house again.

“Oh fuuuck.” He winced, now at the basement door. What a foul fucking smell. That's one good sign. He carefully opened the door and walked down, holding his breath. Too bad he didn't have an augment for this kind of shit. “Oh God fucking dammit.” He whispered. The camera was gone.  
None of the dead men had any identification on them either.   
Fucking hell. Jensen walked out of the house and paced around. Either some random people took the camera, or those freaks had friends. Considering how soon it was…  
This just turned unbelievably bad. Pritchard's wallet. Did he even grab it from the first night?!   
Fuck. He ran back into that room of death. Pritchard's ripped clothes were still there. How did he let himself make this many mistakes? He pockets were empty. Shiittt. He clenched his fist and prepared to leave but then stepped on something.  
A wallet.  
It was Pritchard's. Oh thank fucking God. He stuffed it in his own pocket and left, this time taking most of their own evidence with him.

Jensen resumed thinking to himself on the way back to his apartment. Would Pritchard even be safe? Should he go there first? The man needed sleep, especially since he was still physically hurt.  
Then again, the tech had a monster of a security system. Finally Jensen decided to let Pritchard be and return to his place for the night.


	9. Sunday Noon

The next day started out surprisingly well. Jensen helped retrieve and fix Pritchard's motorcycle and the tech actually made them lunch as payment [or so he says]. Jensen kept quiet about the previous night's discovery until they were almost done eating.

“Francis, can I ask you something?”

Pritchard was caught off guard. “Um, I guess.”

“Why were you at that bar in the first place? I never really took you as someone who goes to bars. What exactly happened that night?”

“Well, I guess I owe you enough to tell you...” The tech became fidgety and stopped making eye contact. “I met up with another hacker, just to chat, and after that those men...stuck me with some kind of control device. I don't even know.”

Jensen frowned thinking about this. “Well, who is this hacker guy?”

“His name is Glitch.” Pritchard dismissed. “I've known him for a while online. Besides, he was gone already.”

“I wouldn't rule him out just yet.” Jensen eyed Pritchard and sighed. “Francis, I don't think our problems are done just yet.”

Pritchard fell very quiet and then said “What?...”

“I remembered about the fact there was a camera recording in that room. When I went back the camera was gone. I don't know why they were recording or why you were chosen but I think there's more of them. I want you to find out more about this Glitch person, Pritchard.”

“I...I can't do that, we have like, an unspoken rule with other hackers and besides this guy is impressively good.” Pritchard hesitated.

“Better than you?” Jensen lifted a brow.

“Well not BETTER but good, if he finds out I hacked into his stuff he'd probably spread word about it-”

“Pretend it's me or something.” Jensen interrupted him. “I don't know who these people are, but this is the only thing we got.”

“Alright…”

Pritchard spent most of the rest of the day sneaking around Glitch's online accounts. While it was easy to actually get in there, Glitch must have also been a very paranoid person since most of his emails were already deleted. Pritchard really didn't think this guy was involved in anything anyways. It was just a sick coincidence those men were there. Just shit bad luck that Pritchard ALWAYS seems to have.

Jensen was back at his place pondering about this entire situation they were in. How dangerous were these people? Yes, they WERE planning on killing Pritchard but were they the type to hunt down someone? Or just pick up at random?   
His tablet beeped.   
*Email received from Pritchard.*  
Glitch has nothing on him. Address is attached anyways. 

Jensen placed the tablet back down. For a paranoid person, Pritchard seemed too trusting of other hackers.


	10. Monday

After what seemed like the longest weekend ever, Jensen and Pritchard back at work at Sarif Industries. Jensen raised security presence especially outside of the building but decided to not tell Sarif about what exactly happened. 

Jensen walked in Pritchard's office during his break.

“Oh I guess we're buddies at work now, too?” Pritchard raised a brow, but flashed a quick smile.

“That depends on you, I'll keep bugging you anyways.” Jensen curved a smile.

“I SUPPOSE I'll tolerate your presence. For now at least.” Pritchard rolled his eyes. 

Jensen couldn't help but smile, not because of what he said, but more of how well Pritchard's been holding up. The guy was a complete mess over the weekend and here he was almost back to normal. 

The rest of the day seemed pretty normal as well. He'd almost forgotten about those people that might or might not be targeting them. Almost.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch and at night Jensen pinged Pritchard to make sure the guy didn't have another spontaneous panic attack.

But there was no answer.

Jensen's heart nearly stopped. He kept pinging and pinging but got nowhere with it. “Fuck.” He growled and grabbed his keys. He was going to kill that man if Pritchard lost his infolink or wasn't wearing it. 

Jensen was cruising through the parking lot of Pritchard's apartment. No motorcycle to be found. Of fucking course. Why would things go their way? He parked anyways to knock on the tech's door.  
No answer. Jensen flipped on some mods to find no trace of anyone hiding inside.   
That familiar rage feeling growled within him. He had to take a deep breath and think about this.   
Sarif Industries. He wondered if the motorcycle was still there? 

While heading there Jensen pinged Sarif.

“Jensen?”

“Boss, have you heard from Pritchard recently?”

“No? Why?” 

“I'm trying to reach him and I can't find him.”

“He was still at the office building when I left. Why do you need him? Something wrong?”

Jensen hesitated. How much should he tell him? “I don't know yet.”

“What does that even mean?” Sarif sounded impatient.

“Look, over the weekend Pritchard accidentally got into a little scuffle with some gang and they'd might've been following him.” He didn't actually know how far from the truth this was.

“What the hell? God dammit Pritchard.” Sarif sighed. “Well, ping me back when you find him.”

“Will do, boss.”

Oddly enough, the motorcycle wasn't even at Sarif Industries. That threw off Jensen a little bit. He went inside to investigate further. Pritchard's office seemed fine. Everything was shut off, looked like he didn't need to leave in a hurry.  
Jensen gave a forced sigh. There was absolutely nothing here to go off of.

Well, there was one last place he could look. That original creepy house where they took Pritchard to originally. He'd honestly be amazed if they took him there AGAIN, though. But he went to check it out anyways as there was nothing else.

What he'd expect was to find the house empty. What he found though was the house was engulfed in flames with firefighters trying to drown it with water.   
“What the hell?” Jensen whispered as he watched. He hoped to fucking God that Pritchard wasn't in there. That rage within him roared to life at the thought.   
He refused to believe Pritchard was dead. After what happened with Megan he'd need to see a corpse now to believe they were actually dead.

Then it struck him.  
Glitch.  
He still had Glitch's address from Pritchard.  
Jensen turned the car around and sped off, planning on giving his 'buddy' a little visit.


	11. Tuesday 2am

The address Jensen followed lead him to a run down neighborhood with tiny houses that looked more sad than his own damn life. The house he stopped at stuck out only because it was the only house with lights on. He flipped on some mods. Looks like there is one adult inside. That’s our man.  
Jensen knocked on the door. The door unlocked and cracked open, still held by a door chain. The man peeking was some dirty chubby guy who looked like he got less sleep than Pritchard.  
“Glitch?”

The man’s eyes widened. “What? Wh-what do you mean?”

“Don’t play stupid, Glitch. You were at a bar named Drift In last Friday with someone. That someone has gone missing.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about .” Glitch started to close the door but Jensen snatched it and yanked it so hard, the chain snapped with the rest of the door flying open.

“Let me try and be more persuasive. If you don’t tell me what you know, I will get it out of you.” That rage started to growl again.

“Alright!! I just met up with another hacker, we just talked about computers that’s it man, I swear!!” Glitch said, cowering over a bit.

“That’s not very convincing.” Jensen growled. “Either you show me some proof or help me find him.”

Glitch was stunned. “Wha..I guess I could help find Nucl3arsnake…”

For a second Jensen was thrown off. But then he remembered about Pritchard’s silly little name. To be fair, calling him Nucl3arsnake was better than ‘my friend’. Jensen let himself inside Glitch’s home. “Deal. Nucl3arsnake left without a trace, but he might have his computer on him.”

Jensen watched Glitch carefully, even with some mods activated. His heart rate was racing, sweating, nervousness…but then again, Jensen did make quite an entrance. Glitch walked through his filthy home to his laptop on the couch. He was typing rapidly and constantly eyeing the scary large man that was Jensen.  
“Well?” Jensen asked impatiently. 

“It takes more that 5 minutes to do this, you know! Nucl3arsnake is one of the best when it comes to security…”

Jensen repressed a chuckle. Damn straight.

“I’m assuming you’re a hacker too?” Glitch nervously made small talk.  
“hmm?”  
“How did you find me?”

Jensen remembered how hesitant Pritchard was about finding Glitch in the first place. “That’s right. I go by many names, right now my name is ‘You better find Nucl3arsnake ‘.”

Glitch slightly jumped at the threat. “You aren’t …S1nnerLock, are you?”

What is up with these names?? “I could be.” 

“Oh my God…” Glitch whispered under his breath.

There was a sound of a gun being loaded.  
The next couple of minutes felt like a slow motion scene.  
Jensen turned around, tearing out his own handgun and firing at a man who was aiming at him. The man took the bullet to an eye and fell over dead. Jensen turned back around, pointing the gun at Glitch now. “Called for help, did you?”

Glitch nearly pissed himself. “Please don’t kill me…”

“Where is Nucl3arsnake?” Jensen growled.

“I don’t know! His computer is off!”

“Well then who the hell is this?” Jensen pointed at the dead intruder.  
“I..Security! I have this home rigged! Look please just leave.” Glitch cried out.  
Jensen bared his teeth. He was so close to getting actual information. “To WHO?”  
“I can’t, more of them will come, just leave!”  
“We’re you responsible for Nucl3arsnake’s disappearance?” 

When Glitch put on that scared guilty look, Jensen was nearly tempted to shoot him right there. “Where. Is. Nucl3arsnake.”

More cars started to appear outside the house. Dammit he didn’t have time for this. Visual mods told him a couple of men out there were augmented as well. Fuck. He was wasting too much time by being here. Finally, he put a bullet between Glitch’s eyes and ran for a back door.  
Unfortunately the men surrounded his car. Fucking fantastic. But not all was bad, they were stupid enough to venture inside the house without even watching any of the cars. Jensen took this lovely opportunity to quickly slash the back tires of the intruding cars with his arm swords and then got the hell out of there. 

When the coast was clear he pinged Sarif.  
“Adam? Did you find Pritchard yet?”  
“Not yet boss, and it’s not looking good.”  
“Shit. Should we call the police?”  
“With all this protesting going on? Might as well not call them at all.”  
Sarif sighed. “Alright son, what should we do?”  
Jensen frowned. That was a good question. “I’m still figuring that out. Go to sleep, I’ll come up with something. “

Jensen now back at his place was frustrated and back to square one. Exhaustion was catching up with him but he didn’t have time to lose. He didn’t even know if Pritchard was freaking alive or not. He rubbed his face and grabbed his tablet. What the hell was he going to do? That’s when he noticed something. A news article. About a house burning down.  
“…Three bodies were found in the remains of an abandoned home tonight…”

Pritchard was wasn’t in there and he was probably still alive.


	12. The Message

Two days of searching and STILL nothing.  
Jensen was driving himself insane trying to find ANY clue of where Pritchard was.   
Sarif even filed a missing person report, but as Jensen predicted it got them nowhere.

That night Jensen got a forceful knock on his door. Even before he flipped on his some mods the knocker hauled ass out of there. Jensen sighed and opened the door. At first he didn't actually see anything but nearly stepped on a small USB drive on the floor. He had a bad feeling about this, he thought as he went inside and plugged it into his TV.

Static

The screen flashed

“..try to mess with...fuck you up...”

“No no, place him here.”  
“Hah, I told you...can't do it...”

The screen flashed

Pritchard looked up at the camera. He was even worse looking that before.

The screen flashed.

Men aggressively ripping clothes off of him again, unzipping their own pants as well.

Jensen froze in pure horror as the scene unfolded.

Screams, Laughter. One even brought out a cattle prod and shocked the poor man while they handed him to another pervert like he was some drugged up whore.

The screen flashed.

“Tell him how you are feeling.”  
Pritchard couldn't look at the camera. “Just...just kill me already...” he whispered.  
“Haha, no no, not yet.”

The screen flashed.

Shaky bloody hands held the camera and a very sad and scared looking Pritchard looked down into it. His hair and face was matted with blood and other questionable fluids. “Jensen...” His voice quivered. “It's not me they want...” His voice cracked, and he bit down on one of his hands to try and compose himself. “...It's you they want...These people they are not some ordinary gang-”

The screen flashed.

“You have 36 hours” appeared on the screen.

End of Recording.  
Jensen was shaking violently with that instinctive rage. He could barely see straight and then found himself throwing his couch at his kitchen, snapping the wooden vintage looking chair in half. “FUCK!!!!!!!”  
He panted and fell to the ground in disbelief. 

This wasn't happening.  
This wasn't fucking happening. 

 

Pritchard's words echoed in his head “I...thanks Adam. I mean it this time. For everything.” 

 

This really was happening.  
Jensen rubbed his head as tears fell down his face. He blamed himself for this. He should've been watching Pritchard more carefully.   
What was he even going to do? It's not like they left a fucking address on the USB, it had that movie file and that was it.

He shook his head. If this was ANYONE else, he would've taken the USB to Pritchard to trace it's origin. Fuck.  
He closed his eyes. “I'm so sorry Pritchard...”

The TV fizzed out and a couple of programs started up.  
“Adam Jensen?” A female voice spoke out.

She didn't sound threatening but Jensen was at such a low point he really didn't give a fuck anymore. “What.”

“Ah, Hello, I'm friend of Nucl3arsnakes. I-”

“Excuse me?!” Jensen shot back up, growling. “The LAST person who claimed to be Pritchard's friend nearly got him killed. And given that you hacked into my fucking TV shows that-”

“Wait! Wait! I can explain! Please! I got an email from Nukes. He told me to deliver a message to you, but to be honest it worried me a little bit so I was going to ask what was going on!”

Jensen sighed. “Fine. What's the message.”

“Okay, he told me to tell you 'Jensen, First off, thank you for everything that you've done. I mean it. The place where I am, these people aren’t normal. It's too dangerous. Don't get yourself killed. I'm serious the outcome is going to be I die, or both of us die. I'm sorry I should have been more careful.”

Jensen frowned, trying to hold back emotion. 

“Mister Jensen, what happened? I'll read to you what he wrote to me.   
Please, just convince Jensen to not find me. I'm on a tablet I managed to find, so I have to make this quick.   
And that's it Mister Jensen. I'm particularly fond of Nukes, so I want to help, even against Nuke's wishes.”

“Alright.” Jensen replied. It was trust her or wait here and let Pritchard die. “What's your name?”

“You can call me ShadowChild.” 

Jensen shook his head, hackers and their names…


	13. In Motion

Shadowchild managed to actually find the origin of the video.

He filled Malik in on what was going on, she was more than happy to fly Jensen over to the pinpointed location by the following evening. 

“Shadowchild, did you find more details about this place?” He spoke into his infolink over the VTOL's engines.

“So far looks like...a large mansion. I'm digging out more details, its incredibly secure. Like, not even huge companies have this kind of security.”

“Do you think that has something to do with Pritchard not wanting us to save him?” Jensen was too focused to bother with referring Francis as his silly online name right now.

“What do you mean?”

“They're using him as bait. The real question is why do they want me?” Jensen replied. 

 

Flood lights shined brightly onto Pritchard's face. He was naked and tied up to a chair. It was barely day 3 of whatever the hell this place was. This was one of the first times he had enough time to even think to himself. He was shivering under the ropes, not quite sure if it was from the coldness or fear. Probably both.  
He thought back of how he even got here.

It was a little after he packed up and left Sarif Industries. He never bothered to tell Jensen that he left early. He was having some anxiety issues and left a little bit earlier than he normally does, which still wasn't actually that early, it was quite late at night.

When he was driving his motorcycle, a couple of vans were following him. He didn't notice at first, and thought it might have been his mind playing tricks on him. But no, one red light later they surrounded him and swarmed him before he could even think about reacting.

A man snapped Pritchard back to reality when he pulled on his hair, lifting his face up to get a good look at him. He just smiled, and dove into what looked like a suitcase full of medical supplies or drugs. 

“I suppose you don't want to tell us more about that tall man in the film?”

Pritchard said nothing. And as his reward, the man took out a syringe and stuck him with it.

 

The VTOL landed in a large field, about a couple miles off of their target location.   
“Jensen, be careful” Was the last thing Malik said to him.  
Jensen walked along the empty country road and actually wondered if this was the right place. 

And there it was, a gate entrance to a massive mansion. This wasn't very homely looking, this was a straight up mafia headquarters looking place. Jensen's heart nearly stopped when as he took in the sight. There were cars, cameras and guards everywhere. Who the hell were these people? He remembered Pritchard giving a warning about that   
“These people, they arn't some ordinary gang-” Pritchard's words echoed in his head.  
Then who were they? This was borderline Illuminati stuff, but...not quite.   
He blinked back to reality. “Shadowchild, I found our mansion. Mansion is quite an understatement.” He whispered, eyes darting around and was thinking about how he'll get inside.  
Even once he was inside, how the hell was he going to find Pritchard? This place was huge. 

“I'm starting to see a little more information on my end. There...is a lot of people in this area, mister Jensen.”

“How many?”

“200 at the very least.”

“On a weekday night?” Jensen couldn't help but wonder out loud. 

 

Pritchard found himself drooling and forcing down huge breathes of air. What the fuck was that stuff? Was his body slowly failing him? 

“You see this?” The man took out a different shot. “This is the cure. You have one last chance to tell me what I want. If not, you're useless to me.”

Pritchard closed his eyes. He hoped Jensen wasn't actually going to try and get him, especially since it looks like it was too late for him now. He coughed as his lungs seemed to refuse to work. Deep down he knew Jensen was here. That man was too stubborn for his own good.   
But where was he?   
The real question though was how much time could Pritchard buy himself.   
The stuff they gave him could be a bluff, something that mimics symptoms without actually doing damage.  
But at the same time, the bodies of others that they would haul out didn't really support that theory.  
He coughed more until he spat a mouthful of blood all over himself.

 

You can end it here and keep Jensen safe

or

You can buy yourself time and possibly fuck Jensen over.

 

Make your choice Pritchard.

 

His eyes started to blur. Forgive me, Adam.

“His name is Adam Jensen.”


	14. Inside

It wasn't until after the man gave him an injection that Pritchard realized how much he actually told them. He was scared, panicked, and dying.  
And he told them everything. With the amount of information he gave, they could probably kill Jensen at this point. And what if Jensen actually wasn't here? He was now responsible for sealing Jensen's fate either way.

You sold your friend's life for your own.

He broke down, how could he do something like this?

“Don't go celebrating just yet.” The man gave a wicked smile. “That one just postpones symptoms.”

Pritchard looked up. “But...”

“You really think you're getting out of here this time? This isn't like the first time, those jokes of mine getting killed and you walking out freely. I don't think so. You aren’t getting out of this one.”

Fuck, he should have saw this coming. And yet he still was stupid enough to tell them all about Jensen. By this point he didn't even want to be saved anymore. If Jensen even survived this, he couldn't bear the thought of facing him.

You are a coward, Pritchard.

 

Jensen snuck around the property and silently climbed one of the sides of the building. There was just too much people around to take down.

“Mister Jensen, wait- something is wrong.” Shadowchild said through the infolink.

“What?” Jensen whispered and eyed around. The outdoor guards seemed to be heading for the front of the building. Something definitely happened.

“A lot of movement for one, security frequencies being changed… alarms being reset, Jensen I think they know-” Her voice fizzed out.

“Shadowchild?” Goddammit. They had probably set up some kind of blocker. Now he couldn't even reach out to Malik if shit really did hit the fan. Who were these people?  
Jensen mentally growled and kept climbing to what appeared to be an open window. Looked like someone inside was taking a smoke break and airing out the room.  
He flipped on invisibility and carefully snuck into the room. A man in what seemed like pretty expensive clothes was in a chair talking on the phone. 

“Yeah, by this weekend for sure. The online website should be running. It can't be accessed normally, remember? Only through dark web. That's right. Yep. Bye.”

Right when the man hung up the phone, Jensen smacked the ever-loving shit out of the back of his head. Shoot and ask questions later was unfortunately going to be the style of this mission.  
He couldn't help but notice the computer on the now unconscious man's desk.  
It contained items, stock, sales...it was a massive online store.   
They were selling hardcore drugs, illegally obtained neuropozyne, illegally obtained augmentations, films of murder, hitmen, human trafficking…  
It struck him. This man wasn't just looking at this website, he was working for it. This was a fucking black market and Jensen was right in it's headquarters.   
Pritchard what HAVE you gotten yourself into? He got back up. No wonder the security was so tight, that must have been how they figured out something was wrong. He needed to get Pritchard and get the hell out of here.   
He left the room and silently crept through the hallways, flipping invisible whenever someone walked by.   
Two men stood by an elevator chatting with each other.   
“I hear he can turn invisible.”  
“Are you serious?”

Jensen froze. How could they POSSIBLY know that? This threw him off. That couldn't of been a coincidence. They really did know he was here.   
And before he could think of a new plan, a special taser made to cripple augmentations was dug into him. He cried out and fell forward, everything turning black.

 

“Look who's here!” A different guy snapped Pritchard back awake.   
Pritchard looked in absolute horror as an unconscious Jensen was lying on a surgical table across the now brightly lit room.   
It was a fucking laboratory and it looked like they were planning on removing everything from Jensen.  
“NO!!” Pritchard screamed. This was all his fucking fault. If only he kept his mouth shut!

“But yes!” The man grinned at him. “You made it so easy for us! He was a bit hard to pinpoint at first but once we got him, the rest was so easy.”

“WHY?” Pritchard was hyperventilating. “JENSEN!! WAKE UP!” He was fighting against the chair so hard the chair tipped over and the gods must have been smiling down on him, because half the chair snapped in half and part of the ropes came undone.   
He grabbed one of the largest tools nearby and bolted for the man, smacking the object down on the back of his head. “Jensen!!” He ran over to the man. It looked like a lot of his computers and sensors were turned off. Hopefully that was an easy fix…

'REBOOTING'

Jensen blinked awake. “Hmm?”

“Thank fucking God...” Pritchard sighed.

“Pritchard?!” Jensen shot up and looked around. Dead guy on the ground. Broken chair. Naked and bloody Francis Pritchard...Jensen smiled anyways. “Well, at least you're alive.”

Pritchard grew red. “Um...I think that guy isn't going to need his clothes for right now.” He forced a nervous laugh as he stole the outfit and put it on himself.

Jensen got up and stretched. It looked like half of his part's weren’t even fully responding. “Jesus, What a mess, I don't understand how they even found me that fast...” he muttered out loud.

Pritchard was shaking. He really should admit what he did. “J-Jensen…”

Jensen lifted a brow.

“I'm so fucking sorry, it was my fault...” Pritchard broke down, the guilt was eating at him “I ...told them...” 

Jensen didn't move, but ended up giving a sigh. It all made sense now. Again, he was glad the tech was alive, but this just made things a LOT worse.

“I'm so sorry Jensen! I don't know why I did it!!” Pritchard panicked when he wasn't able to read Jensen's response. “I just, I just, I don't know!”

“Don't worry about it right now, we need to get out of here.” Jensen replied and headed for the door. 

Pritchard felt awful, but followed him out of the room. He even forgot all about the table full of drugs that was injected into him earlier.


	15. Getting Out

“We need to get that signal blocker turned off” Jensen whispered, keeping the smaller man behind him.

“And do you know where it is?” Pritchard, still feeling guilty as hell for causing half this situation nearly lost all his usual sarcastic bite. Nearly. “Because I can obviously do that.”

Jensen just rolled his eyes. He would be lying to himself if this felt like any other mission. Having Pritchard here with him made him feel invincible. He was once again determined to get both of them out of here alive.

Whenever he spotted a person nearby he'd pretty much stuff the tech in a corner and knock out whoever was investigating the area for them. It took them a while of circling around this massive place before they found any clue of where they were going.  
He couldn't help but notice how quickly Pritchard was getting tired out. Jensen guessed it was from the treatment the poor guy had been receiving for the past couple of days. He slowed down a little bit to let the tech catch up. Finally, they managed to find a room full of servers and computers. Bingo. Jensen tried to hack the security cameras around, but ended up resorting to shooting them down with a muffled pistol he'd picked off one of the guards.   
“After you.” Jensen held the door open for Pritchard, not without flashing a tiny smile.

“Mhmm” Pritchard shook his head on the way in.

Jensen locked the door and stood guard by it, watching Pritchard get to work. “As soon as we get communications up, this whole building is going to be aware of us. Are you going to be up to running?”

“Of course.” Pritchard replied without really thinking about it. He was concentrating too much on the computer systems, flying through programs, altering security, disengaging alarms. “Wait..why is this so familiar...” He said out loud to himself.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean whoever set this up, their style is nearly identical to a hacker.”

“You mean like Glitch?”

“Well, yes, but I already told you he doesn't have anything to do with-”

“He did Pritchard. He set you up.”

“What?...” Pritchard froze “That can't be...”

“I went over and found he wasn't alone either. He called for help, and sorry, but I had to kill that little 'friend' of yours. He DID nearly get you killed.”

Pritchard was speechless. “Glitch...was part of a group of hackers…they didn't really do a lot of hacking into companies. No one was really sure what they did, did he say anything?”

“Not really, he freaked out when he thought I was someone named S1nnerLock.”

Pritchard went white. “Are you fuck...THAT...” He pointed at the computers. “That is why this is so familiar, this is S1nnerLock's work!”

Jensen frowned. “Alright, alright, who is this S1nnerLock guy?”

“I mean he goes by a lot of names, but the most known one is S1nnerLock. He's rumored to be one of the best hackers out there, but not because he infiltrates people's data...I mean it's rumors, but they say he could just make a person disappear, including their history.”

Slowly pieces were falling together. “With a place like this I'm sure someone could make that happen.” 

Pritchard was nearly out of breath, searching for information within the computers “This is..this has got to be his work, it has to be. There is so much illegal activity here..”

“Francis, focus, the communication blocker, we can worry about the other stuff later.”

“Right...” Pritchard took a deep breath. “Right. And here…andddd got it.”

Jensen's sensory systems picked up a signal again.   
As soon as it was connected he could hear Shadowschild's voice. “Mister Jensen?!”

“I'm here.” Jensen replied “Have you been in contact with Malik?”

“Yes, we were both extremely worried, I couldn't-”

“Who is that??” Pritchard walked over to Jensen. 

“Your OTHER friend.” Jensen waved him off. He forgot Pritchard wouldn't of had his infolink on him, so he couldn’t' actually hear the other side of the conversation.

“Wait, is that Shadowchild?”

“Ah! That must be Nucl3arsnake in the background. I am so relieved to hear him.”

“Yeah yeah, hello hello” Jensen interrupted. “We need an escape plan. I have no idea where we are in this place. Pritchard cut off all the security so you should be able to access this place.”

Pritchard leaned against one of the desks while Jensen was discussing their getaway plan. There was something they were forgetting though…He kept sighing to himself. Not really sure why-  
It hit him. He wasn't sighing, he was out of breath. That fucking drug was still in him.

“Shit, there's a lot of movement coming this way, you ready Pritchard?” Jensen looked at him. 

Pritchard hesitated. They didn't have enough time to go back. He already messed up once trying to buy time, he wasn't going to make that mistake again. Sorry Jensen. “I'm ready.”


	16. Finale

As Jensen's systems were still turning back on from earlier, he kept getting faster and stronger, eventually he just started to kill anyone to tried to get in their way. What were these people going to do, go to the police? They found evidence of human trafficking teenage girls, these people already signed their death certificates by coming here.  
Unfortunately Pritchard wasn't doing so well and Jensen was starting to worry. “Come on, Francis, we're almost out of here.” Jensen softly nudged Pritchard along.

Pritchard was coughing, pushing himself as hard as he could. Should he tell Jensen? 

“Pritchard...You can do this.” Jensen interupted his thoughts as he saw hesitation in the tech.

Before Pritchard could reply gunshots rang out, Jensen growled and placed himself in front of him. Jensen fired a rifle and picked off three men that tried to jump them.

“Pritchard we need to go!” Jensen was getting frustrated, they were on the ground floor, they were so close. 

“I can't…” Pritchard was coughing and sweating.

Jensen gave a frustrated sigh and wrapped an arm around him then bolted off.

“Mister Jensen, your exit is on the left, Malik is on her way!”

SCREEEEEEEECH 

FUCK.

Jensen's legs locked up and they both crashed to the ground. His head was on fire! What the hell?!

Pritchard was gasping from shock. “Jensen?! What's wrong?”

“Interference...fuuckk.” Jensen was grabbing his head in agony.

“I don't think so.” A man turned the corner, with what looked like a remote control in his hand. It was the same man that injected Pritchard with that fucking drug. “So YOU are Nucl3arsnake?” He laughed. “What a small world.”

Pritchard was white, gulping down breaths. “S1nnerLock?...”

“The one and only.” S1nnerlock smirked. “Nice to meet you too. I cannot believe how much you both have FUCKED up everything I've got here.” He was over to Pritchard and kicked him in the stomach. “Especially YOU, you motherfucker. I should've just let you die earlier. How DARE you turn off our entire wall of proxies. The fucking FBI probably has what they need to finally find us here.  
You know how many YEARS it took to get this place safe?” He was screaming and took a deep breath. “No matter, You both are going down with me.”  
He took out a pistol and aimed at Jensen's head.

“NO!!!!” Pritchard screamed out. He sprinted and tackled S1nnerLock to the ground.  
BANG

Pritchard froze. S1nnerlock still had his pistol and nearly blew Pritchard's head off when he hit his shoulder up against the other man's hand.  
Pritchard had grabbed onto S1nnerLock's remote and was pressing it, disengaging the disabling signal it sent.

S1nnerLock frantically grabbed Pritchard and held the barrel against the tech's temple as Jensen, furious as hell stood over both of them.

That familiar rage was nearly controlling Jensen at this point. His fingers itched to kill this man. 

S1nnerLock was shaking and squeezing Pritchard's neck. “Stay BACK! You RUINED ME!!”

“You just picked the wrong person to kidnap.” Jensen growled, but didn't move.

Pritchard figured it was now or never, as he could still feel that drug getting back to work. He squeezed his eyes shut and smashed the back of his head into S1nnerLock's face.  
S1nnerLock pulled the trigger but it miraculously jammed and clicked.

Jensen was on him in an instant, smashing his hands down on the man's face until even the brain was turned into a mush.

The familiar rage backed off and he blinked back to reality. “Pritchard?” he looked over at the tech, who was weakly holding his head. Jensen couldn't help but shake off his adrenaline. “You got some guts to pull off something like that, Francis.” He said, pulling the tech to his feet. “We got to leave.”

Pritchard was out of breath more than ever. “Jense-”

“COME ON!!” More men screamed from down the hallway.

“Shit.” Jensen growled and picked Pritchard up as bullets whizzed by. He sprinted outside, looking around. “Shadowchild, where's Malik?!” 

“Almost there!!” Malik's voice sounded out.

Jensen sprinted for the empty fields away from the main road. “Malik I'm heading for-God DAMMIT!”

Lights from a couple of trucks shined as they headed for them. These people were fucking determined to gun them down. More bullets were flying by, a couple ricocheting off his metal arms. “Pritchard hold on tight!” He yelled and pushed himself faster. The truck's engines screamed as they got closer and were interrupted by the loud roar of a VTOL. Jensen skidded to a stop and in one swift motion, he set Pritchard down and spun, taking back out a rifle and aiming for the truck's drivers. 

BAM one down.

BAM the other one down.

The VTOL dipped low enough where the downward pointing engines fried the remaining people on the backs of the trucks.  
“Niiice.” Jensen grinned as the VTOL carefully landed near them.

“Make it quick, there's more coming!” Malik yelled and prepared for a quick lift off. 

Jensen collected Pritchard and leaped on board as more trucks were started to appear. “GO!” He yelled as the VTOL shot back off into the sky.

Jensen grinned. They actually fucking did it. He couldn't help but pat Pritchard's shoulder. “Nice job, Francis.”

Except Pritchard was barely responding. 

“P-Pritchard? Hey, Francis?” Jensen's smile instantly vanish, oh shit, he might've been shot. He flipped on his Casie-mod. What the hell? He wasn't shot but he was barely breathing. “Pritchard??” He started shaking him. “Malik, get us to a hospital.”

“Will do, what happened??” responded in the infolink.

“I don't know...” Jensen started to panic and lightly slap the tech's face until he opened his eyes. 

That should've made him feel better but there was something very very wrong with Pritchard.

Pritchard was struggling to breathe at this point as he eyed around. Look at that, they were in the VTOL, they actually made it.

“Francis, whats wrong?” Jensen's eyes were actually quite big. This was really the first time Pritchard actually seen Jensen...quite terrified.

Pritchard coughed out blood and smiled. “We got out, didn't we?”

Jensen froze. “What? Of course, I couldn't of done it without you, but that, don't talk like that” his color left him as he examined the tech. “What the fuck happened Francis?”

Pritchard just shook his head as tears “Slow acting poison...”

“WHAT?!” Jensen growled. He didn't just risk his life for this man for him to just fucking die now. “With what? Francis look at me, with WHAT?”

“I'dunno..” Pritchard's eyesight was blurring “Adam, I...”

“Don't!!” Jensen cut him off “You aren't going anywhere, you got it?! Malik! We need to get to that hospital NOW. Pritchard, look at me, don't go anywhere.”

Pritchard just gently smiled. “I won't. I promise.” His vision faded out as Jensen was nearly screaming for him to stay with him.

Pritchard blinked awake and quickly sat up.

“Hey, take it easy.” A mechanical hand gently pushed him back down. 

“Am I dead?” 

Jensen smiled down at him. “You almost died. You owe me, you know.”

“Alright, what do I owe you, Jensen?” Pritchard weakly rolled his eyes. 

“How about stop going to strange bars or even getting kidnapped by the largest black market in the United States. How about just not dying, we'll call it even.”

Pritchard weakly smiled. “Deal...” he whispered before falling asleep again.

 

It took several days but Pritchard was finally released from the hospital, and of course Jensen was the one who picked him up. He couldn't help but smile to himself when Jensen showed up. Last weekend he really didn't want anything to do with that man. 

“How are you feeling?” Jensen asked on the way to his car. 

“Like I walked straight to Hell and back, besides that, just fantastic, Jensen.” His playful sarcastic tone was finally back. “Also, what exactly was I poisoned with?”

“Don't bother looking at that medical bill right now, whatever it was it took nearly half the hospital to find an antidote.”

“Wait, are you serious?”

Jensen stopped at his car and gave a smile to Pritchard. “You're insane, you know that?”

“What now?” Pritchard made a face at him.

“I didn't realize you shut down every security on their website, the FBI took the entire place down in the past couple of days.”

“Really?”

“I'm impressed, I think you earned yourself the most insane hacker ever.”

“Excuse me, I think you mean best.” Pritchard grinned.

“That's what I said, now get in the car.” Jensen winked.

 

Boy if this wasn't familiar, Jensen thought to himself as they again drove in the car. Though it was different this time for some reason. Pritchard had been through so much shit but for some reason he'd seemed, happy? Nah that wasn't it.  
Pritchard was back to staring out the window, then quickly looked at Jensen. “Um, Jensen?”

“Mhm?”

“Could I um, stay at your place for a while?” 

“Of course.” Jensen smiled, realizing what the actual difference was now. Pritchard fully trusted him.  
He briefly wondered when was the last time Pritchard even had a close friend. Then he started to wonder that about himself. Could he even answer that? He just sighed and smiled. He'd gone through hell and back for that guy. But it was worth it

“What?” Pritchard looked at him.

“Nothing.” Jensen smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Temporary note) For those interested, stay tuned for alt Jensard ending!


End file.
